Chapter 217: Live to Sienna Pt.217

“Yes! Lady Marie… I mean, if Marquise Methena gets better, I will help as much as I can!”

Seeing Jamie all motivated again, Sienna burst out in laughter.

“Do you like Marie that much?”

Jamie stuttered, embarrassed by the sudden question.

“Oh, no. I mean, I’m not saying I don’t like her…she’s so beautiful and kind. But how dare I…no.”

He protested, waving his arms urgently. Sienna held back her laughter and told him.

“I guess I shouldn’t have asked. Lord Waters is so flustered.”

“I’m not flustered. It’s just…”

He swept down his cheeks with his hands to cool the heat on his face, even though his ears flushed.

“Do you still have no thoughts of marriage?”

“Oh, not yet…”

It was pleasant to see Jamie embarrassed, but I couldn’t just keep teasing him.

Sienna stirred his tea with plenty of honey. The tea was made for Jamie, who prefers sweet, salty, and spicy, all extreme in flavors rather than subtle ones.

“Take your tea. It’ll suit your taste.”

“Yes, sweet and delicious.”

He gulped down the soft green tea at once. He may have gotten used to saying formalities, but he was still clumsy with etiquette. But for the brother who worked so much lately, Sienna poured tea and honey into the teacup once more, rather than pointing out his behavior.

“It’s sweet and very delicious. But… I heard something strange.”

“What’s that?”

“That the Empress is trying to save the Second Empress’s life.”

After the investigation, it was already revealed that Bluebell was not pregnant. It was clear that Carl had deliberately revealed the truth. He seemed to have no intention of forgiving Bluebell.

When that fact was revealed, the aristocrats rushed to raise their voices, saying that the Second Empress is also guilty. They sided with Bluebell before, when Count Ferrer and Arya were supporting her, but now they had nothing to gain from her, they turned their backs to Bluebell. So rather, they wanted to use her as a scapegoat to dissipate Carl’s anger.

“I don’t want her beheaded.”

“The reason I wanted to save Lord Panacio is because we have been friends. But the Empress has nothing to do with the Second Empress. On the contrary, weren’t you more like enemies?”

Sienna didn’t answer Jamie’s question right away, but took a sip of tea. Jamie peeped if he was curious about her answer.

“Is it because of compassion? You don’t want to see her die, even if you hate her? But the Second Empress committed enough crime. There are so many victims!”

Jamie’s voice grew louder and louder. Because many people were lost due to this incident, he seemed to have hostility toward Bluebell. He seemed to think it was justice for her to be beheaded.

Neither did Sienna consider her innocent. Bluebell had several chances before making her worst choice. Only if she confessed before they got on the wagon that day, they could have prevented a big trouble.

But she chose silence until the end. Clearly, Bluebell has helped this. There was no reason for her to be excused.

But if the punishment for her was the death penalty, it was too easy. There were too many victims of this incident for her to simply escape through death.

“I think she should be responsible for this, too. But I think death is not enough. It’s… too easy.”

“I don’t understand what you mean.”

“Do you remember? How she looked after finding Count Ferrer’s body…”

It was not easy to forget how Bluebell looked that day, sitting on the ground, hugging her father’s grotesque body that was horribly distorted.

Jamie also kept silent as if he remembered how she was. Sienna breathed heavily and said, “I don’t think death is the only way to ask for responsibility. That’s not enough. She has to watch everything alive. Rather, it may be a more cruel punishment to live and watch everything she destroyed.”

Jamie nodded slowly instead of answering. He seemed to have fully understood Siena’s meaning.

It was just the beginning. Only the investigations had been made, and no purge had happened yet. Count Ferrer, one of the main culprits, had died, but the execution of his blood relatives has not yet been made either. Bluebell had to watch all those deaths in her family.

Moreover, she could no longer be an empress. She was still staying at the palace, but it was only temporary. When this work was finished, she will be abolished. To endure the insult would also be a cruel punishment for her.

Most of all, it would feel more terrible to be alive when she finds out that the reason she was alive was because of Sienna’s generosity.

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“Why are you doing this to me? I didn’t even know what this witch did!!!”

It was difficult for Arya to not smile at the man crawling on the floor.

Depine Panacio, who had always covered his ugly body with high-quality silk and had an incense burner to hide his bad smell, was at Arya’s feet. He was also bleeding.

Tortured in ragged clothes, his blood-stained flesh was revealed. His face, covered with tears, runny nose, blood and dirty dust, was disgusting, but it was still enjoyable for Arya.

The rebellion she prepared had failed, and it was clear that she would not escape the penalty. She was still intact because she was so easily spouting information about those involved in the rebellion. She started spitting out odd amounts of information before she even got tortured.

“Dowager Empress, say it again. Is it true that Count Panacio ordered the assassination of the Emperor at the event?”

Arya nodded at the question of Pavenik, who was frowning and asking.

“That’s not all. Count Panacio has been in contact with the Castro Empire for a long time. He worked as a spy for the knights of the Castro Empire, turning them into royal knights. He also joined hands with me and blinded Lord Rodbius, my former spouse, with drugs and sorcery, and blasphemed the deceased using drugs and curses to hide his death for a long time.”

Every time she opened her mouth, Depine screamed, with a look of horror.

“It’s true that I helped hide the Emperor’s death, but I just pretended not to know what she had done. How can you believe that dirty b*tch?!”

Arya put her arms upon the dirty table in the torture chamber, propped her chin and looked down at him.

“Would I have been able to do all that work by myself? And why would I make up lies right now, if nothing can save me? It’s true that I tried to revolt, and I’m not ignorant enough to think that my end is not death.”

Pavenik looked at Arya and Depine with a tired face. In terms of circumstances, it was hard to believe that Arya alone joined hands with Ferrer to create the rebellion. But the situation was strange.

When he went to arrest Depine, he didn’t even know why he was being captured.

He was vociferously cursing Arya and Carl, who took away his title as Marquis, and he was drunk and drugged in a brothel in his own estate when they found him. It did not seem like something an accomplice in a rebellion would do.

What’s even stranger was that Arya has nothing to gain from revealing this. Rather, claiming that she had committed the crime alone was her best choice. Then maybe even a little bit of the House of Panacio could be preserved. Of course, there would be a punishment.

Just based on her argument now, all members of the Panacio family had to be executed. They were guilty of such grave crimes that not one of them should be preserved.

“Empress, do you know how serious these crimes that you’re talking about?”

Rather, Pavenik asked back. Arya burst into laughter.

“Of course, I’m held like now, but I’m not out of my mind yet. I’m just going to die without leaving a single question about me. You can think of it as the last whim of someone who is about to die.”

Pavenik frowned, rubbing his forehead at the repeated suspicious answers.

“You b*tch! Tell me the truth! I had no idea what you were doing. If I had known you were doing such a terrible thing, I would have told the Emperor first!”

Depine’s shouts in the narrow prison made Pavenik’s eardrums tingle. When he was frowning he heard a smacking sound.

GASP-

Depine made a choking sound then fell flat. One of the knights who was holding him kicked his diaphragm to put him out for a moment. The knight apologized to Pavenik immediately.

“I’m so sorry sir. He was just way too loud…”

Pavenik nodded, because he was deeply in agreement with the knight.

“He was noisy. Why can’t he just talk normally? Why does he have to scream? The old man is strong.”

As the knight nodded, Pavenik hit him on the shoulder and said, “Don’t be so hard on him, though. Because his end should not be this underground prison, but in the middle of a square watched by many.”

“I’ll make sure!”

It was when Pavenik was enjoying the relief that came to his ears, which had long been overworked by Depine’s voice. The man guarding outside informed him that Carl had come.

“What is there to see here for you to make this trip?”

Pavenik said with a sullen face. It wasn’t until Carl frowned that he got himself straight.

“I’m just saying because Your Highness has given me all the hard work with an excuse to protect Her Majesty the Empress. There’s no point in putting some kids under me. It’s the same whether I work alone or with my juniors, I still leave work only after the sun goes down. You’ve made it sound like this is all for my good, but you’ve actually done this for your own convenience.”

Pavenik seemed to have a lot of complaints even though Carl gave him more people, saying he still has a lot of work to do. Carl wasn’t free enough to listen to all of his talks.

“If you don’t feel any difference, then cut them all off. Do you want me to make you have no time to eat, let alone go back home like before?”

“Oh, no. It’s usually best to look at the stars after dark.”

As he spoke with an exaggerated rub in his palm, Carl nodded his head pleasantly. He looked at Arya, leaving behind the whining of Pavenik.

“You were in such a good place. So why were you so greedy? If you had just lived comfortably stuck in the empress’ palace, you would have been able to enjoy a long, healthy life.”